


Bureaucratic B.S.

by ancilla89



Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 20,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29450763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancilla89/pseuds/ancilla89
Summary: Set pre-series. Danny's return from his second tour in Fallujah.No offense to those who served our country, or received medals for their service. Danny is just frustrated because of the reasons he got the medal.
Comments: 105
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

He’s discharged “honorably”—polite bureaucratic bullshit for “We’re Sorry, but We’re Sending You Home Because You’re the Only Surviving Member of Your Unit.”

He doesn’t tell his family he’s coming home. He wants to get all the bureaucratic $#!+ out of the way first. Maybe after the meetings and paperwork and debriefings, he’ll be able to lay to rest the demons.

He gives the minimum of information, in some cases lies through his teeth on every form, in every meeting. He definitely lies on the PTSD screening form. All he needs is a little time. A little time, and he’ll put the memories behind him. He’s grateful he doesn’t wake up screaming from the nightmares, like Chuckles. Except…Chuckles hadn’t screamed the night before he took Danny’s place on patrol.

The last meeting done, last paper signed, he calls Linda from the base. “Hey, babe.”

“Danny!” she shrieks. “When does your plane land? We’ll meet you.” He hears Jack whining and Sean babbling; they’re 3 and....he thinks Sean's like 18 months or something.

“Ummm…I’ve been Stateside since the first. Finished up all the bureaucratic b.s. this morning. I’ll be home in a few hours.”

“You’re Stateside?! You’ve been in the U.S. for three weeks and haven’t called? Does your family know? I’ll call them.’

He shook his head. “No. I don’t wanna shock Dad, not with Mom…” He sighs. “Please just let me come home, have a reunion with you and the boys. I’ll take a cab. I’ll be there tonight. I love you.”

“Love you more,” he whispers, and feels something unclench a little at her breathy “Love you most.”

* * *

Due to a million snafu’s he doesn’t get home till almost midnight. He’s dragging; hungry, exhausted, and on edge. He’d had to bite his tongue to keep from reaming out the cabbie, who drove over debris like it was nothing. Like there wasn’t the slightest chance it could be an IED.

His heart is pounding out of his chest when he rings the doorbell.

Linda opens the door, and he drops his bags, pulls her tight. “I missed you.”

She pulls him and his bags inside, locks the door, kisses him fiercely.

He’s reaching for her waistband when she pushes him away. “Your heart’s pounding, Danny—like you ran a marathon. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just heavy luggage, excited to see you.”

“You’ve been sitting in a cab for 3 hours; you dragged your bags a few feet; that’s not it.” She looks at his face. “Honey, you’re terrified. What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t tell her about the cab ride, the deep-seated fear that they were going to hit an IED and that would be the end of him.

“I’m tired. Can we talk later, after…?”

He makes love to her and falls asleep.

* * *

_Bombs and mortars wake him up and he bolts for cover, tucked in between an oil drum and the wall of the warehouse that’s their temporary quarters. He puts his hands over his ears—might as well try to save whatever hearing he has left. Rate he’s going, he’ll be deaf by the time he gets out of the Corps._

* * *

Someone is talking quietly. “You’re okay, you’re safe. It was just a nightmare. I only heard you because the thunder woke me up, and the neighbor’s teenager was revving his engine. You’re okay.”

Words. Why is someone talking about cars and thunder? Can’t they hear the bombs?

He opens one eye.

  
“Linda? What…what happened?”

“You had a nightmare. Do you know where you are?”

He looks desperately around. This isn’t the barracks; it’s the master bathroom. He curses quietly. “Our house. Sorry I woke you up. Why…why am I squished between the toilet and the wall?”

“I don’t know.”

Probably trying to take cover from a bomb, he thinks, but doesn’t say it out loud.

He wraps his arms around himself, takes a few deep breaths. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s okay. Do you wanna talk about it?”

"No!" he shouts, and stands up so quickly he hits his head on the sink. He curses, and she steadies him. “I’m sorry, babe, I’m just exhausted. I’m going to go take a shower. Join me?”

He falls asleep again after their shower and making love to his wife until he can’t remember the name of the town where he went to hell...a hell he's not sure he'll ever come home from.


	2. Chapter 2

She’s doing Danny’s laundry, hoping he’ll actually take a nap after a night of nightmares when Sean toddles in holding something. “S’iny” he whispers, 15-month-old speak for “shiny.”

She takes it out of his hand. It’s a medal. She thinks it’s the Bronze Star.

“Where did you get this, Sean-o?”

“Dada.”

She kisses his head. “Go play with Jack. Mommy needs to talk to Dada.”

He toddles off, and she goes upstairs. Danny’s sitting on the edge of the bed. He’s been Stateside for four weeks, home—back home with her and the boys—for one week. He’s still waiting to go back to the NYPD.

To her relief, he’s not spending his days drinking beer and staring at the TV, but she wonders if that might be better than all the time he’s spending stuck in his head. Sure, he’s done some of the honey-do list she’d been saving up for during his ten-month tour, but he’s also spending a lot of time sitting on their bed, staring into space.

She knocks on the doorframe, not wanting to spook him. The flashbacks have been rough, daily, and terrifying, though Danny insists he’s fine after each and every one.

He looks up at her, his eyes dead. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey.” She walks in the room, hands him the medal. “Sean found this, brought it to me. Why didn’t you tell me you’d gotten a medal? Why wasn’t there a ceremony? Why weren’t we there?”

He shakes his head. “Because I don’t deserve it, because they gave it to me while I was still in that hellhole, because I didn’t realize it had come back with me.”

A gust of cold air February air hits her, and she realizes the window’s open. “Danny, it’s like 17 degrees outside. Why’s the window open?”

He shrugs. “Thought it might help me…stay present,” he whispers, and shivers. “I f-g hate the cold.”

“So you opened the window? You didn’t hate the cold this much before.”

“It gets really f-g cold in the desert at night, okay?”

“Okay. Can I close the window?”

He shrugs.

She closes the window, wraps a blanket around him and rubs his back. “I wish you’d talk to me, babe, instead of spending so much time stuck in your head.”

He sighs. “Nothing to talk about. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as Gormley processes my papers.”

“I thought you had a meeting today with him.”

“No. He’s reviewing all the notes from my debriefings and meetings with the f-g military shrink.”

“What happened over there, Danny?”

He stands up, paces. “War. War happened. That’s all you need to know.”

He storms out of the room, and she cries quietly until Sean pulls her arm. “Hungry,” he says.

“Okay, baby boy.”

Jack hugs her. “Why are you crying, Mommy?”

“Because Daddy is…sad. Will you go draw him a picture, Jacky?”

He runs downstairs to the shelf where they keep the art supplies, and she goes downstairs with Sean, gets him a snack.

Once Sean is done and is scribbling his own picture for Danny, she makes Danny a plate of cheese, lunchmeat, and crackers, and takes it to the backyard where he’s sitting. “For someone who hates the cold…what are you doing out here?”

He shrugs. “Thinking.”

“Made you a snack.” She hands him the plate and a glass of water.

“I’m not 2, you don’t need to do that.”

“You didn’t eat breakfast, babe.”

He sighs, nibbles on a cracker. “I’m going to go down to the range, requalify. I’ll see you later.”

He kisses her and leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I realized my timeline was all off.**

**Sean is born November 2003.**

**Danny comes home for one month (January 2004), then he’s gone again for his second tour—which coincides with both battles of Fallujah. He returns February 1, 2005 as the only surviving member of his unit, and goes home to Linda and the boys three weeks later.**

**This chapter takes place March 1, 2005. Mary Margaret Reagan dies September 14, 2005, at the age of 50**.

* * *

* * *

Danny changes his mind and drives over to Bay Ridge, goes inside the old family home. He’s only seen his Mom once since he got back, and she was asleep then.

He walks into the living room, which looks more like a hospital room than the living room of his childhood. His mom’s sitting up in bed, reading. He clears his throat. “H…hey, Mom.”

She drops the book and holds out her arms. “Come here, Danny-boy.”

He hugs her thin body, feels her shake. “Don’t cry, Mom, please don’t cry.”

“You’re home. I thought I wasn’t going to get to see you again.”

He clears his throat roughly. “Yeah, yeah, ‘course I’m home.”

She pulls away, caresses his face. “You look awful, Danny. How long have you been home? Have you been sleeping?”

He shrugs, sits down in the armchair by her bed. “Been back Stateside one month—had more meetings and debriefings and evaluations than I had when I enlisted. Got home to Linda and the kids a week ago.”

“But you’re okay, right? You’re not hurt?”

He shrugs, winces as it pulls on the scars on his back. God forgive him for lying to his mother, but he has no plans of telling anyone what actually happened. He’d told Linda it was from getting stuck in a barbed-wire fence. “I’m fine. Tired but fine.”

“Physically, maybe. But your eyes…you look ten years older.”

He scoffs quietly. “Thanks a lot.”

“I thought you had a few months left in your tour.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re the only surviving member of your unit…” He trails off.

“O Danny…” she sounds like she’s going to cry, and he holds her hand.

“Hey, no tears, Mom. Please. I can’t talk about it.”

She pats his cheek. “Just like your father. Have you seen him?”

“No. I…slept for twenty-four hours when I got home. We missed Mass and family dinner.”

“How are my grandsons?”

He shrugs. “Destructive, just like me and Joe.”

“How long are you home for?”

“Ummm…for good.”  
  


“I thought your four years wouldn’t be up until November.”

He tenses. “Enough about me, Mom. How was Christmas? How are you feeling? What did the doctors say?”

He half-listens to her, and tries to focus on her face and not the dead faces of his buddies.

He makes her a sandwich before he leaves for the shooting range.

* * *

“Your aim has improved, Reagan,” Gormley says approvingly.

“Thanks, Sarge. When do I get back on the job?”

“There’s a lot of red tape, Danny. Be patient. Enjoy the time with your family. How old is Sean anyway?”

“18 months…almost 18 months…hell, I don’t know.”

“Go home, spend time with your family; you’ll be back to your old 16-hour days before you know it.”

He cleans his weapon, does his paperwork, and heads home.

* * *

  
Linda kisses him. “Your mom called, said you’d been by. How is she?”

“How do you think? Thin and pale, and still had the b—gall to tell me that I look like hell. Why’d she call?”

“Just to tell me know you’d stopped by.”

He takes a deep breath. “So you’re checking up on me?”

“I’m worried about you, Danny! You aren’t sleeping; you’re staring into space; you won’t roughhouse with Jack like he wants to…”

“Because he’s only 3, and I don’t want to hurt him!”

“Danny, you’re not going to…”

He shakes his head, walks into the kitchen, gets a beer out of the fridge.

“Danny! It’s not even 2 p.m. Please, babe…”

He ignores her and goes into the living room.

He takes a swig of beer, sets it down, and starts going through the stack of mail addressed to him. Eight envelopes from the VA notifying him of missed calls and missed appointments. Great, he’s been home 1 week and they’re already stalking him.

The missed calls…he’d destroyed his phone during his first week Stateside, thrown it against the wall after a flashback. But he’d still put that number down on all the paperwork, because he’d memorized it—and he did not want them calling his home number and talking to Linda.

He wonders vaguely how they’re planning on tracking him down. Sending veterans to his door to scare the crap out of Linda? Continuing to send him eight or nine envelopes a week?

He turns the TV on, mutes it, and begins turning the letters into confetti.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: The idea for Danny storming out of work and being suicidal comes from @ZenyZootSuit’s EXCELLENT story, “[To Anyone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15283527?view_full_work=true).”

* * *

He’s been back at work three weeks, during which time he’s gotten written up twice.

And now he’s probably lost his job.

He’d thrown a suspect into the wall—a suspect whose DNA was on the body of a little kid. Gormley had told him to get lost, and made some not-so-subtle suggestions about therapy.

So now he’s sitting in his car in an abandoned parking-lot, his finger caressing the trigger of his service weapon.

He’s surprised Gormley hadn’t demanded he hand over his badge and gun. Maybe “get lost” had just meant “take a walk and cool down,” but no, that can’t be possible; that’ just wishful thinking. It had definitely meant modified, or suspended, or probably “You’re fired.” Which still doesn’t tell him why he’s sitting here holding his gun, why Gormley hadn’t taken it.

He knows it’s not fair to Linda and the boys; it’ll probably kill his mother, who’s already dying; and it’s a mortal sin, so he’s going to hell…but it’ll just be easier on all of them.

Linda won’t be woken up by his nightmares anymore.

The boys won’t tiptoe around him…well, Sean isn’t doing that yet, but he’s pretty sure he scared Jack the other day.

The kid had bumped Danny’s water glass with his elbow—the shattering glass had sounded exactly like an IED—and Danny had hit the floor, and crouched under the table until the room stopped shaking and his ears stopped ringing.

He takes a deep breath and puts the gun to his head.

He sighs, takes off the safety, and starts praying the Act of Contrition: ” _O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee_.”

His phone rings.

He curses quietly.

Then it beeps indignantly, and he puts his gun down with a curse, picks up the phone. Three missed calls from Linda.

“Hello?”

“Danny, Sean’s got a 103˚ fever, I’m driving him to St. Victor’s now, can you meet us there?”

“Yeah, yeah, let me tell Sarge,” he lies, not wanting her to know he isn’t at work.

“I already called him after you didn’t answer your phone the first three times. We’ll talk tonight. Please just…come.”

“I’m on my way. Love you.”

“Love you more,” she says as Sean wails in the background.

“Love you most,” he whispers, and turns on his sirens and lights.

* * *

Sean has meningitis, and it’s not until his fever breaks five days later that Linda agrees to let Frank spend the night with him so she and Danny can go home and sleep.

They take separate cars, and Danny sits in his for a few minutes.

He jumps when Linda opens the door and gets in the passenger seat. “What’s wrong, babe?”

He shrugs. “Wh…what do you mean?”

“I know what happened at work…Gormley told you to take a walk. Where’d you go?”

He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I came back.”

“Danny…we’ve been married eight years. I know when you’re lying to me…or not telling me the full truth. What happened?”

He sighs. “I’m going to put the lasagna Erin sent in the oven, and go take a hot shower while it cooks. You can join me if you want.”

She does join him, and they make love, and he about jumps out of his skin when her fingernails scratch the scars on his back. “What happened, Danny?”

“I…I can’t talk about it; it’s…classified.”

“That’s not what I meant. What happened the day Gormley kicked you out? Where were you?”

He shakes his head, rolls onto his back so she can’t see the scars anymore. “I was just…driving. It doesn’t matter.”

“Whenever you say something doesn’t matter…that means it does.”

He pushes her away, curses at the tears pricking his eyes. “Dammit, Linda, just drop it!” he shouts, or tries to, but his voice is thick with tears.

He pulls on some pants and goes to the basement to beat the $#!+ out of the punching bag.


	5. Chapter 5

Linda gives him an hour before she goes down to check on him.

He’s sitting on the floor, still shirtless, leaning against the bag, and his face is wet with tears.

She sits down a few feet away, glad to see that he wore gloves this time—meaning his hands aren’t the mess they usually are after a session with the punching bag. “Danny, babe, can you hear me?”

He’s been home six weeks, and already she knows that’s the first thing to ask after he has a flashback—or suspected flashback.

He nods, sniffles. “Yeah. ‘M sorry. I…I shouldn’t have yelled. Forgive me?”

“Of course. Can I hold you?”

He nods, and she puts her arms around him, careful not to touch the scars. “Please talk to me, Danny. Let me help.”

“You can’t.”

“Then at least…tell me so I can carry it with you.”

“You’ll be mad.”

“No, babe, I promise I won’t. You can tell me anything.”

“I’ll lose my job.”

“No, I already talked to Gormley, you’re not fired. He does really want you to talk to the department shrink, but you’re not fired.”

He shakes his head.

“What if I promise not to tell?” Linda asks cautiously, feeling like she’s back in third grade again trying to find out which girl Jimmy has a crush on.

“You promise? You can’t tell Dad, or Mom, or Gormley, or…anybody.”

“I won’t breathe a word. I promise,” she says, and kisses him gently.

“After Gormley kicked me out, I…I thought he’d fired me, and I…I was going to kill myself,” he whispers.

She wants to shake him and ask him how can he be so damn selfish, but that will just make him shut down—or lash out, neither of which she wants.

So she counts to ten, swallows her tears, and asks as calmly as she can, “Why, Danny?”

“Because I’m so f-g tired of everything.”

“What do you mean ‘everything’?”

“The nightmares, the flashbacks, Fallujah. Getting written up at work.”

“Danny…how close were you to…?”

“The barrel was on my head when you called.”

She chokes on a sob. “Then you need help, babe. More than I can give you.”

He pulls away from her. “I’m not talking to some idiot who’s never spent five minutes on the job, but somehow thinks his fancy-schmancy degree gives him the right to tell me why I’m feeling this way!”

“Danny…you need to talk to someone…maybe a support group for other vets?”

“I’m the only one in my unit who made it home. No one…there’s no one who understands that. Not in the f-g state of New York.”

“You don’t know that, babe.” Then it hits her, what he’s said. He’s the only member…

She pulls him close again, feeling his muscles under her fingers. He’d definitely lost weight while he was gone. The scars….she wishes he’d talk about them.

“You…you’re the only guy in your unit who made it home? Danny, I’m so sorry, babe. But you need to know how happy I am that you made it home, too.”

And that sounds like guilt…she’d read about survivor’s guilt, and she wonders if that’s what’s keeping him up at night.

He nods, sharply. “I…I can’t talk about it. I need to shower, I’m gross.”

She stands up with him, kisses him. “When you’re ready to talk…I’m here, babe. Okay?”

He nods, and she runs her finger across a scar. “Can…can I join you?”

He shakes his head, looking fifty years older, and walks tiredly away.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Just a reminder that in my headcanon, Danny was tortured during his second tour in Fallujah, and he has scars from that—physical ones, plus the mental ones.**

* * *

He spends more time than is probably healthy looking at the scars on his back. Why did he get out of there alive, if scarred, but his buddies were killed in front of him?

Some doctor in some nameless town had told him they’d fade with time, but almost five months later nothing has faded. He wishes Linda wouldn’t run her finger over the scars when they make love. It reminds him too much of…

He shakes his head, turns the water on, gets in the scalding-hot shower.

The door opens. “Danny?”

He sighs. Apparently, Linda had decided she wasn’t going to let him shower alone. Hell, she probably doesn’t want to let him out of her sight, now that he told her he’s suicidal.

It isn’t even that he really wants to die; he just…doesn’t want to live with the memories. Trying to shove them to the back of his mind hadn’t worked so far, which was why he’d gone with…the other option.

He hears clothes hitting the floor—he had thought his hearing would have dulled, after all the explosions and blasts; but it’s just his luck it’s more acute—and then Linda’s pulling back the shower curtain and joining him.

He wants to snap, but it’s hard to be mad when he’s looking at her beautiful body, unscarred, un-aged by war. “Thought I said ‘no’ to you joining me,” he says tiredly.

She smiles, and he leans down for a kiss. “I didn’t you hear say anything. Please let me help.”

He shakes his head against her shoulder. “How the hell can you help when I can’t even tell you half of what’s going on inside my head?”

“By listening to what you do say. What happened to your back? It’s too…irregular to be from getting caught in a barbed wire fence.”

He’s not sure how she knows that, knows what scars from a barbed wire fence look like, but he really can’t talk about it. Just thinking about it…makes him want to puke.

“Shrapnel,” he lies. “I can’t tell you anything more. It’s…classified.”

Two lies to his wife in less than a minute… he turns away from her and pukes over the drain of the tub.

A hand rubs his back, and he jerks up, nearly knocking Linda off her feet until she steadies him. “Easy, Danny, it’s just me, you’re okay.”

He rinses his mouth out under the shower. “Can I please have ten minutes to finish and get dressed…alone?” he asks, unable to bear her presence and her touch any longer.

“Of course,” she says, and she sounds like she’s going to cry, and he knows he’s hurt her, but he doesn’t have the energy to care.

* * *

  
It’s twenty minutes before he comes out of the bathroom. She’s sitting on the floor next to their bed, hugging one of his old USMC sweatshirts and crying quietly.

He sits down next to her, pulls her close. “Hey, don’t cry, babe. I’m sorry, Linda. I’m sorry I can’t talk to you about what happened over there. I’m sorry I…”

He can’t say anything else, because she’s kissing him passionately now, and he tangles his fingers in her hair.

When she pulls away after a minute, she looks him in the eye. “I wasn’t crying because you won’t tell me what happened. I’m crying because…you’re hurting, and I don’t know how to help you. I love you, Danny. And seeing you in pain…makes me hurt, too.”

He swallows thickly. “I…I saw the other guys in my unit…every single one of them…I saw them die.”

He can’t tell her that he should have died with them, that he doesn’t know why he survived, that the guilt is what made him put his gun to his head five days ago.

He starts to panic a little when she doesn’t say anything.

“Please don’t ask me,” he starts, because she’s going to want details, and he cannot talk about the details yet; and then she pulls her head down to her breast and rubs his back.

And the knot that’s been there since he woke up in that hospital in Fallujah, the knot that’s been there since Padre Donovan told him he was the only survivor, the knot that’s choking him and threatening to strangle him…that knot unties itself a little, and he sobs into her chest.

* * *

By the time he’s cried himself out, he’s stretched out on the floor with his head in her lap. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m a f-g grown man and I just bawled like a baby. Dammit, Linda, I’m sorry.”

She’s rubbing his back and whispering something. “It’s okay, Danny, you don’t need to apologize. Are you feeling any better?”

He shrugs a little. “Don’t know. I know you want me to talk, but I…I can’t.” He’s hit the limit for conversations and sharing and thinking; he just wants to forget.

She pulls him to his feet and they lie down. He holds her tightly.

“Is that…seeing your buddies die…is that why were gonna kill yourself the other day? Because you couldn’t save them?”

He nods.

“I’m so sorry, Danny. I need you to promise me something, though.”

“What?” he asks, afraid she’s going to ask him to quit the NYPD or give up his gun, or…something he just can’t do.

“I want you to call me, find me, talk to me, when you’re feeling like that. Let me remind you of all the reasons you have to keep living.”

“Like what?” he whispers, suddenly half-asleep.

“Sean, and Jack, and me, and your family. Living another day to build a pillow fort with Jack, show him how to hit a baseball. Living another day to rock my socks off with our love-making. Living another day to go to another Sunday dinner with your family. Living another day to get another bad guy off the streets of New York. Living another day to tell me you love me most.”

“Love you,” he whispers sleepily.

  
“Love you more,” she says, kissing his nose.

“Love you most,” he yawns, and falls asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: What Danny says about the term “disorder” and vending machines is from 04x13, “Unfinished Business.”**

Also, just a general note: The DVD’s of season 4 have commentary on that episode. And in the course of the commentary, Donnie Wahlberg says (text is slightly edited):

> _I try not to walk around carrying Danny's PTSD on my shoulders every single episode, but I do try to carry on the foundation built in the pilot of him being really driven and buried in his work and hypervigilant. … A very good way to deal with stress/depression/PTSD is to work, to bury yourself so you don't have to have a breath of fresh air; so you can be left alone with your nightmares. And the underlying story is that part of the reason Danny's been able to live with PTSD and be so good with what he does is he has the support of his family_.

* * *

* * *

Linda wakes up with a gasp. She doesn’t know what woke her, then she realizes Danny’s talking quietly.

“…and then…I saw them, Linda. I saw them tortured to death. I should have died. Only somehow I didn’t, and I…every day I wish I’d died with them.”

She bites her lip to keep from crying, afraid Danny will clam up if he realizes she’s awake.

He starts to get up, and she can’t pretend any longer.

She sits up. “I love you, Danny,” she whispers, because she isn’t really sure what else to say.

He sighs, lies back down. “How much did you hear?” he asks resignedly.

“That you saw your buddies tortured, and you wish you had died with them.”

He tenses. “I’m sorry.”

She holds him gently. “You have nothing to apologize for, Danny. Now that I know…we can figure out how to help you feel better.”

“I’m not going to a shrink.”

“Okay.”

“What, you’re not gonna make me go?”

“No, because if…if you don’t want to do the work to get better, then forcing you into therapy would be a waste of time.”

“Are you gonna call Gormley and tell him I’m suicidal and make him take my gun and put me on modified for the rest of my life?”

“Do I need to?”

He shrugs, leans closer to her. “No.” He sighs. “You’re confusing me here, Linda.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But I know you, Danny. And…you’re really good at lying your way through every trauma debriefing the NYPD puts you through. You’d probably…”

“How do you know what I say in the trauma debriefings?” he interrupts.

“Because I’ve seen how upset and torn up you are after certain cases, and yet…you get cleared and you go back to work, and I just…I can tell you weren’t honest.”

“So?”

“You’d probably do the same thing if you were to go to therapy for your PTSD.”

He pulls away from her at that, sits up. “F-g name. ‘Disorder.’ Sounds like a damn vending machine instead of a soldier. I don’t have PTSD. Not that the military said, anyway.”

“Were you honest in all the assessments and meetings?”

“Any Marine worth his salt knows that’s a death sentence to any sort of job! That woulda just given me a nice letter: ‘O, sorry, you’re disabled and you can’t work as a police officer anymore because you’re all screwed up in the head,’ and then I’d be out of a job and have a permanent mark in my record.”

“Or you’d get help and get treatment, and not be suicidal, and keep your job.”

“And do you know how long it’d take if I waited for the VA? At least six months. I could be…”

He stops abruptly, but it’s not too hard to guess what he was gonna say.

She sits up, turns her bedside lamp on, reaches for him so she can see his face. “Danny, are you thinking about killing yourself?” she asks.

He looks away, shrugs…all of which tells her the answer is “Yes”…but his mouth says “No,” and then a torrent of words: “At least, I don’t think so, but…it seems easier…but I couldn’t do that to you and the boys…but I’m so f-g tired…and I can’t live with this…and…I think I need help…but Dad would disown me.”

And all Linda can do is hug him tightly, afraid he’ll disappear if she lets go. She has no earthly idea how to help him.


	8. Chapter 8

“It’s not that I wanna die, I just should have died over there,” he says, and wonders how true that is.

“If you’re still feeling that way, then you need to talk to someone.”

“Still? I’ve haven’t been Stateside three months, Linda.” He’d been counting dates in his head so he wouldn’t freak out. He’s been Stateside almost ten weeks, home with Linda and the boys almost seven weeks, back at work almost four weeks.

“I know.”

He can’t handle this conversation any longer, and he sits up, starts getting dressed. “I’m going to the store for ice cream, you coming?”

“You know I can’t turn down ice cream.”

* * *

He’s driving down the main street that leads to the grocery store when he sees a plastic bag in the middle of the road. There’s something inside it.

* * *

_One of the convoys had just been blown up yesterday. Before the driver died, he said, “Watch out for…bags…cats.” They’d been told that the enemy hid IED’s under potholes, inside animal carcasses…but it was the first time they’d seen it, on their third day in-country_.

* * *

He swerves to avoid the bag, and the car hits the curb, and there’s a yelp.

* * *

_“Danny!” someone screams, and no one in this hellhole calls him Danny, and he shakes his head, wondering if he’s hallucinating._

* * *

His head is throbbing. He’s in his car, on Staten Island, and Linda is rubbing her head.

He puts the car in park. “Linda, babe, are you okay?”

She nods, reaches for the keys and turns off the car, takes the keys. “I…I’m fine, but I think we have a flat tire, it feels a little low over here. What happened, Danny?”

“I…the plastic bag, and…”

“You thought it was a bomb?”

He nods. “I’m sorry. I…”

He hits the steering wheel with his fist. “Dammit.”

“You’re okay. Can I touch you?”

He nods, leans his head on the steering wheel as she rubs his back.

He’s gasping. That’s the worst…flashback, or whatever the hell that was...he’s had outside of his home. So much for his theory that he only had them at home.

“Are you okay? Are you sure you’re okay, Linda?”

“I’m fine. Got a teeny-tiny bump on my head, but you weren’t even going twenty-five. I’m fine. Can you take some deep breaths for me?”

He shakes his head, curses up a storm.

He finally takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m….”

She pulls him to her, kisses him—obviously trying to get him to shut up. “Shhh, we’re okay. Do you think you can change the tire once you’re calmer, or do we need to call AAA?”

“I…I can change it,” he says.

* * *

It takes him twice as long as usual to put on the spare tire. He lets Linda drive; they limp to the store, get a container of rocky road, and go home.

He’s lost his appetite for ice cream, but he gets two spoons and sits on the couch next to her anyway. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Danny.”

He takes a halfhearted spoon of ice cream. “If…if the boys had been in the car, or if that had been a busy street, or…there’d been street parking…” He trails off, shaking his head.

“But there wasn’t. It’s okay. I’ll take the car to the shop tomorrow.”

He nods. “I…I think I need help,” he whispers.

He feels her nod against his shoulder, then her arms are around him. “I’m proud of you.”

“Wh…why? I nearly got you killed, I crashed the car, I told you I need help…what’s there to be proud of?”

“I’m proud of you for having the strength to admit that you need help.”

“What the hell is strong about needing to see a shrink?”

“It’s like…if you’re on a boat in the ocean, and your boat is sinking, and the Coast Guard comes by and throws you a rope and a life preserver, and you tell them: ‘Nope, I’m strong enough to do this on my own,’ and then you drown because you think you can get out of there by yourself: is that strength or stupidity?”

He smiles a bit at the image. “Stupidity.”

She kisses him. “Yeah. But if you accept the help because you’re gonna die otherwise…is that strength, or it being weak?”

“Ummm…I guess…I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do, Danny. Don’t make me steal your ice cream till you give me the answer.”

“You’re gonna steal my ice cream anyway,” he grumbles.

He’s dimly aware his shoulder is throbbing. He plucks the ice cream carton out of her hand, holds it to his shoulder, then to the bruise on her forehead.

“Danny, stop trying to distract me. My head is fine. Answer the question, babe.”

“It’s not stupid to accept the Coast Guard’s lifejacket.”

“So…going to therapy to get help so you don’t hurt yourself or someone else…is that stupid?”

He pulls away from her, shoulders slumping. “Fine, I’ll talk to someone. But it can’t be through the VA. And it can’t be someone who will report back to anyone in the NYPD.”

“I know the names of a few therapists we used to refer people to at King’s General.”

He nods, scrubs at his face. “I’m exhausted and my head hurts. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Of course. I’m going to go run us a bath. Come join me when you’re ready.”

He nods, kisses her, and goes into the kitchen to put the ice cream away.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: I don’t particularly like this chapter; it feels disjointed. And, yes, Doc will show up in the next chapter, but I’m trying to keep the focus on Danny and Linda, so he’ll be a minor character**.

The next morning, Danny calls in sick to work, and Linda sits with him through five different phone calls to therapists. The first four don’t have appointments for months. The fifth can see him that afternoon.

* * *

The therapy appointment is a bust. Danny had asked her to sit in, and it takes every ounce of Linda's self-control to let Danny talk and not to yell at the “shrink”—who doesn’t deserve the name “therapist.” He keeps asking Danny what he did in Fallujah that made him feel “this way”—as if it’s Danny’s fault he’s suicidal.

“That’s not why I’m here! I’m here because I had a flashback while driving yesterday, and my wife could have been killed, and I…I need all of…this… _$#!+_ …to go away so I can get back to my job!” Danny yells, and storms out.

Linda writes a check, smiles apologetically, grabs Danny’s thermos, and follows him.

He’s leaning on the hood of the car, his breath coming in loud gasps. “Danny, babe?”

He looks up at her. “Stupid b****. So, yeah, I killed some bad guys—but I was _doing my job_! That’s not why I was going to kill myself five days ago!”

She rubs his back. “I know. We’ll find you someone else. Why don’t we go see Sean?”

When they get to the hospital, they learn that Sean is well enough to be discharged, so they pick up Jack from Erin’s, and go grab dinner at Chic-Fil-A.

Sean plays with the little dinosaur toy that was in his meal, and both boys eat their nuggets like they’re starving.

“I’m already dreading the teenage years,” Linda whispers to him.

Danny nods, nibbles on his fries. “Dada, eat!” Sean says, and he smiles wanly, takes a bite of his chicken sandwich.

He finishes most of it, then they go home. He gives the boys their bath, then puts them to bed.

“You’ve been quiet all evening,” Linda says when he comes downstairs.

He shrugs. “Trying to hold it together for their sake.”

She rubs his back. “I love you.”

“I almost killed myself five days ago, and almost crashed the car last night. What’s to love about that?”

“You’re still the love of my life.”

He kisses her. “You think I shouldn’t go to work tomorrow.”

“Do you?”

He shrugs. “I’ll be on modified; Gormley isn’t clearing me until I see a shrink. And…I don’t think having a loaded gun on my hip would be…a good idea right now.”

She rubs his back. “I’ll make some more calls while you’re at work tomorrow.”

“Calls about what?”

“Finding someone for you to talk to.”

He nods, stands up. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

* * *

Desk duty is a drag as usual. He’s snippy with Gormley all week, and Thursday the boss tells him he’s suspended until he sees a shrink and gets his head out of his @$$.

He throws his sandwich in the trash, and leaves.

He has a text from Linda with two names. He’s not spilling his guts to some woman shrink who’s gonna tell him to get in touch with his feelings or his feminine side, or some nonsense, so he calls the second number and schedules an appointment for 4 p.m. that afternoon.

The fact that this guy’s c.v. says he’s worked with police and vets…might be in his favor.

He decides to go see his mom before going to get his head shrunk.


	10. Chapter 10

His mom is in the kitchen arguing with Henry, who looks relieved when he sees him. “Danny-boy, maybe you can get your mother to go rest. I’ve got dinner fully under control.”

His mom looks like death warmed over, and he hugs her. “Actually, I came over to talk to you about something, Mom, let’s go back to the living room.”

She feels feverish, and he decides this is not the best time—never would be a good time, actually—to tell his dying mother that he’s suicidal. Because, really, all that means is he’s a coward. The heroes from Fallujah are the guys who died. He’s not a hero, medal or no medal.

“Where’d you go, Danny? I asked you how Sean is.”

He shakes his head. “Sorry, Ma, guess I zoned out. He’s fine…a little clingy, after being in the hospital for six days, but he’s fine. Ummm, look, I can tell you don’t feel good; I’ll come by Sunday.”

He gets her some water and a cool washcloth for her forehead, and tells her about Jack’s latest LEGO creation—which he wants to bring to Sunday dinner to show her. She’s asleep within ten minutes.

He leaves with a quick, “Sorry, Gramps, gotta get to a meeting,” and drives to the shrink’s office.

* * *

He's exhausted and on-edge by the time the session is over.

He has three text messages and seven missed calls from Linda, and he curses himself, calls her quickly. “I…I’m okay. Didn’t realize the first session would take two hours. I need to get gas, then I’ll come home.”

“I love you. We’ll talk when you get home. I made that roast chicken you love.”

Thankfully, she lets him eat without pushing him to talk. They get the boys to bed, then Danny sits down on the couch, and studies his shoes, which need to be polished.

“He didn’t get all judgy like that b@$+@rd on Monday. He listened. Had me take a couple questionnaires, and I…I was honest. Lying wouldn’t get me anywhere other than in another parking-lot with a bullet in my brain. Turns out I’ve got PTSD and depression. I stopped him there; told him if he was just gonna slap a diagnosis on me and shove pills down my throat, then, I’m out. That’s why I’m not going to the VA.”

He expects her to scoff, to say, “ _Danny Reagan is voluntarily opening up about his feelings_?” and is relieved when she doesn’t.

“I’m proud of you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re talking, you’re not drinking yourself into a stupor. What does this guy want to do, if he’s not shoving pills down your throat?”

“He wants to talk. He wanted to see me every week; I managed to talk him into every other week; once a month when I get back to working 16-hour days.”

“Do you think you’re going to give him a try?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve been home less than three months, Linda. Tried to kill myself once, crashed the car and could have hurt you. I need…as much as the idea of talking about my feelings, about what happened over there, pisses me off…I…need help.”

* * *

He thinks he’s still suspended, so he’s surprised when his phone rings at 8:15. “Reagan, you’re late.”

“Thought I was suspended, Sarge.”

“I said…until you see a shrink. I have documents in my email stating you saw one.”

“Wait…Dawson emailed you? That son-of-a…”

“You signed off on it, Reagan. All that paperwork shrinks have you sign? And it was mandated, so of course he had to tell the department.”

He kicks the wall. “So…am I back to full duty?”

“No.”

“Then what the *** are you calling me for?”

“You’re on modified duty, which means I need your butt at your desk yesterday”

“Why am I modified? I mean, it’s not like I’m having flashbacks all the time, Sarge.”

“You hit a curb Sunday night; you could have killed Linda, or yourself, or another person, if it just hadn’t been your luck that the street wasn’t busy. You cannot tell me you’re safe to work the streets carrying a LOADED GUN!”

He jumps, dropping his phone on the counter when Gormley yells. He curses him out fluently.

“Wow, Reagan, I haven’t heard some of those words since my years overseas in the service. You’re on modified, and you’re late; you were supposed to be here at 8 a.m. If you’d ever check your email, you’d know that. We’ll talk when you get here. Time’s-a-wasting,” Gormley says, and hangs up.

He kisses Linda goodbye and leaves, forgetting his lunch on the counter.

He makes a detour by the shrink’s office. The doc is just unlocking his office, and Danny walks up to him. “What the hell do you mean, telling my boss I’m suicidal? I thought there was patient confidentiality, _Doc_!” He sneers the word like it’s an insult.

“Good morning, Detective Reagan. I have a patient at 9, but I can give you fifteen minutes to get this off your chest. Please, come inside.”

He stalks inside the room, sits down on the edge of the chair.

Dawson starts the coffee machine, then sits down in a chair catty-corner from him. “Confidentiality does not apply when a patient is suicidal. My first priority is keeping you safe—and that meant telling your Sergeant that you were not fit for full duty. You signed that on page 12 of the paperwork last night.”

Oh. “Well, you coulda told me you were gonna tell Sarge.”

“I did. I realized later that you might not have heard me, because you were on the edge of a full-blown flashback.”

“ _On the edge_ …? What the hell are you talking about, Doc? You make it sound like I’m having flashbacks non-stop.”

“You’re the one who noted that you were having at least four a week—times when you’re at home with your family, and suddenly you’re crouched between the dryer and the wall, or next to the tub. And last night, about thirty minutes before you left, you zoned out on me. I was asking you what triggered the almost-car-crash Sunday night, and you started to hyperventilate.”

He has no memory of this. He remembers trying to pass off the car crash as nothing… _he was tired, he swerved, the plastic bag had no significance, it was just a plastic bag_ ; and then… nothing, until he walked out of the office.

“You’re sure you told me that you were gonna tell Gormley?”

“I’m positive.”

He stares at his shoes. “Sorry for storming in here like this.”

“Apology accepted. I’ve scheduled your next appointment for two weeks from Thursday. Here’s my phone number; call if you need to. I want to help you, Detective Reagan, but you’re going to need to want to be helped.”

He takes the card, nods. “Thanks, Doc,” he says, and leaves.

When he gets to work, he immediately starts catching up on his backlog of paperwork, and hopes his boss leaves him alone for the rest of the day.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: So this was going to be date night, and then Danny…took this chapter in a different direction. Next chapter will be date night, though no promises when I’ll get to it**.

* * *

He calls Linda on his lunch break to tell her he’ll be home early since he’s on modified, asks if they’re still on for date night--it's their Friday tradition. Pre-kids, they'd go out. Since the boys...since he came back all screwed up in the head...they have a nice dinner at home.

"Of course, babe. I love you."

Hearing that never gets old. He wishes she'd say it again. "Love you more," he whispers.

"Love you must," she says, and hangs up.

* * *

The boys rush him when he gets home. “Dada, Dada, Dada!”

He picks them up, glad he can still do that even if he can’t protect them because he isn’t freaking stable enough to do his job.

“What did you two do today?”

“Play!” Sean says. “Trucks!” Only it sounds like…well, another word, a _four-letter one beginning with “F,”_ and Danny chuckles.

“Trucks? Show me how you play with trucks,” he says, and plays with them until Linda gives them their dinner of fish sticks and applesauce.

He paces while Linda bathes them and puts them to bed, circling between the kitchen and the laundry room, his thoughts as scattered as the plastic bag he’d seen Sunday night; and suddenly his feet slide out from under him.

He catches himself on the counter, and manages to land, seated, on the floor between the trashcan and the kitchen cabinet.

His back slams into the wall, and…

_His ears are ringing and he can smell the sand and burning flesh and taste the…acrid taste that he’s never gonna be able to get out of his mouth again, and he can’t breathe, and, he f-g cowers against…_

_It’s the wall, a side of the house they’d been clearing. The blast had thrown him against it. He goes for his rifle, but it has been thrown out of his hands. He’s starting to crawl toward it when his someone shoves him back against the wall. “Stay put!” Then Jonesy yells “Grenade!” and he covers his head as they all scramble for cover_.

“Danny, Danny?”

_His name. Why is someone calling him by his name? No one calls him “Danny” here; he’s just “Reagan.” Well, Padre calls him “Dan,” but…Padre’s different._

_He reaches up to wipe dust from his eyes, blinks._

_Linda’s looking at him with concern._

_What’s Linda doing here in this hellhole?_

Then he sees the ground isn’t the packed desert dirt of Fallujah, but the tiles of his kitchen. He’s home, and he’s just had another flashback.

“Dammit,” he mutters, and jumps when Linda sits next to him with her back against the wall.

“Shhh, you’re okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Slipped.” He sees a banana peel on the floor, kicks at it. “Stupid banana peel. My back hit the wall, and…” He shakes his head, reaches for her hand.

The military shrink had quoted statistics and f-g “coping tools” at him during his debriefings, but he’d ignored them. Doc, yesterday, had told him to focus on what he could sense—what he could touch, or see, or feel, or taste.

He holds Linda’s hand tightly. “Are…are the boys okay?” He doesn’t want them to see him like this; if they _never_ find out he served in the Marines, that’s fine with him.

“They’re fine, sound asleep. How can I help?”

He shakes his head. “Can you rub my back? I think I fractured something.” He doesn’t really mean it, but he also isn’t joking, because his back f-g hurts, and if he doesn’t stop thinking about…that hellhole…he’s going to do something stupid like cry.

“Can I touch you?”

He nods. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know. That’s not why I’m asking.”

“Then why?”

“Because I don’t want to startle you, push you back into that flashback.”

He nods, scoots away from the wall so she can rub his back, shivers. “Sorry I ruined date night.”

She kisses his cheek gently. “You didn’t ruin it; we can still have dinner once you’re a little calmer. Take some deep breaths for me, okay?”

He nods, leans his chin on his knees, takes some shaky breaths as her fingers trace the scars on his back. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Her fingers stop, and then she’s squeezing his hand. “What? What wasn’t supposed to happen?”

“Me coming back all screwed up in the head. I was supposed to come back fine, like after my first tour, go right back to work. Not get in trouble at work and be having flashbacks and crashing the car and seeing a shrink.”

“This isn’t your fault, Danny. And you’re not screwed up—you’re hurting.”

He wants to deny that, but…everything that’s happened this week has proved she’s right. “Why? Why am I falling apart?”

She kisses his cheek again. “You’re not falling apart, babe. You’ve been through a traumatic experience, and it’s gonna take some time to process it. Sorta like…”

She sighs. “If…when I had rape victims in the ER….I always referred them to therapists. Because that’s a traumatic experience and they can’t just….shove it down and get over it. You follow me?”

He nods. That makes sense. “But that’s…”

“It’s a traumatic experience, Danny, just like fighting in a war, just like seeing all your buddies get killed in front of you. And you can try to shove it down, but eventually, you put enough pasta and boiling water in a pot, it’s gonna boil over and make a mess.”

He nods. “So my pot is boiling over? I thought your cup running over was supposed to be a good thing,” he says, memories of Mass and years of Catholic school coming back slowly.

“Two separate analogies, babe. You feeling better now?”

He shrugs. “What are your plans for this date night in?”

“Salmon, pasta, a salad, and then a movie on the couch. Maybe I can show you the new nightgown my bullheaded sister sent me,” she add huskily, and kisses him.

“The one who thinks our romantic life is non-existent?”

“The only sister I have, babe.”

He nods. He hates Wendy. “S…sounds good.”

She stands up, and he shivers, and lets her pulls him up.


	12. Chapter 12

Thanks to @[visionsofdazzlingrooms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visionsofdazzlingrooms/pseuds/Visionsofdazzlingrooms) and @[BridgetP](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BridgetP/pseuds/BridgetP) for their inspirations for this chapter!

* * *

After dinner, he starts the dishes while telling Linda to sit on the couch and put her feet up.

The doorbell rings and he hears Linda answer it, smirking to himself. He turns from the sink to watch the interaction.

“Jocelyn, what are you doing here?”

Jocelyn is the neighbor’s almost-18-year-old daughter. She’s been babysitting since Jack was a baby. “Detective Reagan called me this afternoon, asked if I could babysit. He said you had a last-minute change of plans.”

Linda turns to him. “Danny, what’s going on?”

“We’re having date night, uninterrupted. Jocelyn is going to stay upstairs with the kids. We’re going to have date night down here.”

Apparently, she has no words for that, because she motions Jocelyn to go upstairs, then locks the door and sits back down on the couch.

He’s wiping down the stove when “Everything I do, I Do It for You” starts playing. He puts the sponge down just as Linda wraps her arms around him.

He startles and almost snaps, then softens his tone. “Please don’t sneak up on me, babe.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and kisses him. “You remember how to waltz, Danny?”

He shrugs. “Yes, but can you waltz down the stairs?”

She looks confused, but puts her phone in her pocket. The song, muffled, keeps playing. “Why?”

“I have plans.”

They waltz to the steps, then Danny carries her downstairs.

“I know you hate the basement, so I thought…we could work on fixing that.”

She looks around.

The queen-sized air mattress they’d slept on when they first got married and couldn’t afford a bed-frame, much less a mattress, is on the floor. He’d hung a satiny sheet up to hide the water heater and appliances, and his dad’s old projector was set up for them to watch “Casablanca” later.

“When did you do all this?”

He shrugs. It’s not much. “Last night, about 2 a.m.”

“Danny, you need to sleep.”

He kisses her. “I know. Later.”

He plucks her phone out of her pocket with a smirk that makes her kiss him, starts the song over again, and throws the phone onto the mattress. “May I have this dance?”

While they dance, his mind keeps wandering back to scenes in Fallujah, and after tripping over Linda’s feet twice, he pulls her close with a shuddering breath.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

He shakes his head, slides down the wall ‘till he’s sitting on the floor. “Can you give me a minute? Maybe go change into those pajamas Wendy sent you?”

She kisses him and goes upstairs, and he sits there counting loose threads in the gray carpet.

He’s up to thirty-nine when she comes back, wearing her pink bathrobe. “Where are those ‘romantic pj’s’?” he asks.

“Later. After A) you tell me what’s wrong, and B) we watch the movie.”

He sits on the air mattress, holds her, tries to distract her by untying her robe.

“Danny, stop it!” she laughs, and he knows he’s tickled her. He tries again, but she pulls away, grabs his hands in hers. “Please tell me what’s wrong, babe.”

He shakes his head. “This…being here, with you and the boys. Being able to afford a last-minute babysitter. I don’t deserve it. I…” He shakes his head. He’s going to ruin date night if those words come out of his mouth. “Never mind. Don’t we have a movie to watch?”

“After you tell me what you were just going to say. I promise I won’t yell, and I’ll try not to cry. Just tell me, babe, and then, maybe I’ll show you this purple…” She trails off teasingly, and he goes to kiss her, but she shakes her head.

He makes a mental note to watch his words around her, because she doesn’t deserve to hear the words he had almost said just now. He kisses her, and captures the tie of her fluffy pink robe, and unties it to reveal something purple and satiny and so…skimpy…it probably can’t be called “lingerie.”

* * *

He falls asleep after they make love.

A while later he wakes up, his heart pounding. This isn’t their bedroom…why is he on an air-mattress…where is Linda? He’d been dreaming that she was in Fallujah with him, and she’d been captured, and he’d failed…

She walks back into the room, and he scrambles to his feet, holds her tightly. “Linda, O thank God!”

“Danny, what’s wrong?” she asks as he kisses her. “Babe, what happened?”

He’s kissing every inch of her he can reach. “I…I had a nightmare that they captured you. And you…I had to watch…all you had on was that skimpy purple thing, and they…”

“Shhh, I’m right here. Feel this?” she asks, and moves his hand under her robe.

She’s warm and soft and… _alive_ …and he relaxes, collapsing back onto the mattress, pulling her down with him. “I…I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have left without waking you up. Do you think that might help? If I wake you up before I get out of bed, or leave something on the pillow so you know I’m coming back?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. What time is it?”

“Still early, only 9 o’clock.”

“You still up for the movie?”

She nods, and he turns on _Casablanca_.

* * *

**A/N: It's been a while since I've seen _Casablanca_...anything in there that might give dear ol' Danny a flashback?**


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I know this is brief, but it's necessary to set the stage for the next chapter. Bear with me here.

[Flashback to chapter 3]

* * *

_“Frank, honey, Danny came by today.”_

_Her unflappable, unemotional, husband of almost 27 years almost drops his glass of whiskey. He sinks heavily into the armchair he's stationed at her bedside “Danny’s home? Why didn’t we know? Why didn’t we meet his plane?”_

_She shakes her head, holds her hand out to him. "He's been Stateside for a month. He specifically asked that they not tell us he was coming home."_

_He sighs, then walks over to her and sits down on the hospital bed and holds her gently. “Is he okay?”_

_She snuggles into his broad chest. “He looked tired. Haunted. Like he’s not sleeping. They sent him home early because…he’s the only surviving member of his unit.”_

_She feels Frank tense at that, but he doesn’t say anything._

_“You should talk to him, Francis.”_

_“Why? What’s there to say?”_

_“Because he’s your son, because you know what he went through over there, because…”_

_“No, I don’t,” he interrupts gruffly. “War’s changed a lot since I served. Vietnam, Iraq…two totally different places, different types of fighting. There’s nothing to say to him.”_

_“Francis, please. He’s hurting.”_

_“Then he should deal with it.”_

_“And if that means going to therapy, or taking medication?”_

_It’s an old argument, and she knows she’ll lose, but she has to say it. She isn’t surprised when Frank’s only response is to kiss her gently, then go upstairs to their bed._

_She pulls her Rosary from under her pillow to pray for her oldest, and cries herself to sleep_.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: This takes place two days after chapter 12, so the Sunday after Danny and Linda’s date night**.

* * *

Apart from Sunday dinner each week, Frank doesn’t see Danny. In fact, he thinks his son is avoiding him. He calls, but the calls are unanswered, or answered tersely, only talking about work.

It’s a Sunday in mid-April, and he’s in his study in the back of the house…he’d turned it into a second living room of sorts once Mary couldn’t go up the stairs anymore…pouring himself a glass of scotch, when Danny comes into the room.

“Thought you were avoiding me,” he says dryly. “Two months is a long time to only mutter to me at the dinner table.”

Danny shrugs, drains the glass Frank hands him. “Been busy with Linda and the boys.”

“What happened over there?”

Danny shakes his head. “Come on, Dad, I know Mom told you: _Poor Danny, he’s the only one who made it home_. Don’t f-g ask what happened—you _know_ what happened, you _know_ what war is! It’s hell! Why the hell do you wanna know details? So you can feel sorry for me?

He doesn’t want to get into it with Danny—the verbal sparring matches are never fun—so he ignores that and says, calmly, “I thought you weren’t scheduled to come home until November.”

Danny stops on his way to sit down, turns, eyes blazing. “Yeah? You realize my first tour was 9 months, my second tour got extended to 12—if I’d stayed till f-g November, that would have been 22 months. If I was lucky, I’d have gotten three months R&R. You know what, Dad, maybe I should have just died over there. Then I wouldn’t have almost killed myself two weeks ago.”

The glass of whiskey slips out of his hand and drops heavily, shattering on the floor. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Danny startles, eyes going wide as the glass shatters. His own glass slips from his hand—there go two fine pieces of Waterford, Frank thinks sadly—and he startles further, backing up against the bookcase and sliding down the wall to sit in a crumpled heap.

_Why the hell is my son acting like a little kid?...O crap, he’s having a flashback_.

Frank sits on the floor in front of his son, avoiding the glass and whiskey.

“Danny, look at me. You’re safe,” he says, and shakes him by the shoulder.

Danny’s fist collides with his nose, and he rocks back, shocked that his son had hit him.

He’s trying to find the handkerchief he always keeps in his back pocket, then Linda is pulling them apart. “Don’t touch him, Frank! What happened? What did you say to him?”

He holds the handkerchief to his nose. “I didn’t say anything! He told me he almost killed himself, and I dropped my glass, and I guess…it startled him.”

“Give us a minute,” Linda says. “Mary’s worried, go clean up your face and let her know everything’s okay.”

He leaves to attempt to comfort his wife.

* * *

Linda sits down in front of Danny, in his line of sight. “Danny, babe, it’s me, Linda. You’re safe. We’re at your dad’s house, just talking. You’ve been home a couple months now; it’s April, 2005. Can you look at me?”

He shakes his head.

She turns when she hears footsteps, but it’s just Joe. He gives her a mock-salute, and starts cleaning up the mess, staying half-hidden behind his dad’s armchair so Danny won’t see him.

“Can I touch you?”

He nods, taking shuddering breaths that make his whole body shake. She holds his hand. “Mom?” he whispers.

“She’s fine. Your dad is talking to her.”

“He thinks I’m crazy.”

“Well, then, your mother and I will set him straight. Can you look at me, babe?”

He opens his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She puts her hand on his cheek, feeling the rough 4 o’clock stubble. “You have nothing to be sorry for, babe.”

He gags suddenly. “Why’s it smell like liquor in here?”

“Your dad dropped his glass of whiskey when you said…when you told him what happened a couple weeks ago, and that startled you into a flashback.”

* * *

He doesn’t remember shattering glass, just the sound of an IED going off, and sliding down the wall.

He says goodbye to his mom and reassures her he’s fine, lets Linda drive home, does bath-time with the boys.

He’s sitting on the edge of their bed, clad only in pajama pants ‘cause he got overheated. He’s staring at the floor when there’s a knock on the door, and he startles, looks up. Linda is standing in the doorway. “Can I come in?”

“This is your bedroom; you don’t have to ask.”

“You looked like you were having deep thoughts. I didn’t…want to startle you.”

He sighs, feeling his shoulders slump. That’s all he is now: someone his family tiptoes around because they don’t want to startle him because he might have a flashback or try to kill himself. Pathetic.

“You can come in,” he says tiredly, and leans his head on her shoulder when she comes in the room. “I love you.”

“Love you more,” she says.

“Love you most.”

He rubs the back of his neck, and quickly shifts position so Linda can give him a back-rub—well, it’s more of a neck-and-shoulders rub, ‘cause that’s where all his stress goes. “I just wanna be the guy I was…before. The guy who loved you like you deserved, patient with the boys, jokester with my family, no-nonsense Marine and cop. I feel like I left all of that in Fallujah.”

She kisses the back of his head, starts working on a knot that makes him groan. “You’re still that guy, Danny. You love me beyond what I deserve, you’re still patient with the boys, and you’re still a good cop. Maybe you’re not as much of a jokester, but I’d say that’s normal.”

He nods and drifts off to sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Thanks for inspiring the second half of this chapter, @[visionsofdazzlingrooms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visionsofdazzlingrooms/pseuds/Visionsofdazzlingrooms)**!

* * *

Frank wipes the blood from his nose and leans heavily on the sink in his bathroom. He doesn’t want to go downstairs and face Mary until he’s calmer. He doesn’t know what Linda told her, but she had to have heard the two glasses shattering, and she’s more tearful and easily upset these days. Damn cancer. In the past eight months it had taken her hair, both breasts, and her upbeat nature.

He shakes his head, splashes cold water on his face, and plasters on what Jamie calls his “I can neither confirm nor deny” face, and goes downstairs.

“Frank, what’s wrong? Danny looked so upset. He tried to say he was fine, but I know he wasn’t.”

He sits down next to her, puts his arm around her thin shoulders, and she recoils. “You smell like a distillery, Francis, please go shower.”

“I’m sober, Mary. I had less than one drink; the rest I spilled.”

She gags. “Go shower please.”

He showers, puts on his pj’s and his bathrobe, and goes back downstairs. She’s lying down. He cleans out the trashcan, lights a candle to make the room smell better, and pulls the cover over her shoulders. He’s about to turn off the light and let her sleep, when she sits up slowly. “I’m fine. Now tell me what happened with you and Danny.”

He sighs. He can _not_ tell her the whole truth. “My glass slipped out of my hand, it startled Danny, and he had a flashback.”

“Twenty-plus years of marriage, I’ve never known you to drop a glass unless you’re upset; I’m the klutz. Try again. What did Danny say that upset you?”

“Mary…”

“Francis, he’s _my son_.”

He kisses her head and stands up. He paces, then stops at the window and looks out. “He asked me not to tell,” he lies. “He doesn’t want to upset you. He said he’ll tell you himself.”

Two lies to his wife in ten seconds, God forgive him.

“Then I’ll ask him,” she says, and he hears a groan as she starts to get out of bed.

He’s at her side in an instant. “Mary, not now, it’s late. You can call him in the morning, or better yet, I’ll call him and tell him to stop by before work.”

She nods, looking exhausted, and he holds her close until she’s asleep, then goes to the kitchen in search of a glass of milk and another swig of whiskey.

* * *

The one benefit to modified is that Danny has regular hours: 0830 to 1700. He gets home Monday afternoon to find Linda frazzled. “O thank God you’re home! The boys have been whiny and clingy and asking for you all day, and I need to go to the grocery store and get a haircut, and there’s no way I could do that with them like this. Dinner’s in the oven; it’ll be ready in thirty minutes; I should be home by 8 p.m. Love you.” She kisses him and is out the door before he can say “Love you more.”

“Mama!” Sean says.

“Mama just went to run some boring errands; she’ll be home soon. How about we do baths while dinner cooks, that way we can play after dinner?” he asks.

They agree excitedly, although he ends up having to give Sean another bath after dinner to get the chicken casserole out of his hair.

“Dada color?” Sean says, and he gets them set up with a huge sheet of butcher paper and crayons on the table. “No, you color wif us!” Sean says, so he doodles some stick figures and a house and some roses because they always make him think of Linda.

The boys are in bed by 8, and he’s about to call Linda to see where she is, when she calls him. “I ran into two old high school girlfriends. We’re going to grab ice cream and catch up; I’ll be home by 10. Are the boys okay?”

“Fed, bathed, teeth brushed, prayers said, and fast asleep.”

“Good. I’ll see you in a bit. Love you.”

“Okay. Be safe. Love you more,” he says.

He settles on the couch with a glass of water, turns the TV on mute.

He’s surprised Linda trusted him to stay home with the boys. If he were her, he wouldn’t trust his suicidal @$$ home alone with his kids. Not that he’d hurt the boys, but…

He’s just about to unmute the volume and find a ballgame to watch when he hears crying over the baby monitor.

He sighs and goes upstairs, ready to yell at Sean for wetting himself.

But it’s Jack who’s crying and blubbering, and Danny picks him up out of his Thomas the Tank Engine bed. “What’s wrong, Jacky?”

“I had a bad dream,” the 4-year-old blubbers. “You…you…you were sad and I drew you pictures and it didn’t help.”

Danny sighs. “Hey, it’s okay, bud, I’m okay. And your pictures always cheer me up. It’s okay.”

“You were SAD like this!” He waves his arms, and Danny wonders if he made the whole world sad in his son’s dream.

“I’m…I’m happy, buddy. I’m here with my favorite little Jacky—the one and only little Jack—what’s there to be sad about?”

Jack shrugs.

He racks his brain for an appropriate joke for a 3-year-old. “You know how porcupines are all poky?”

“Yeah. Mommy said they have spines.”

“That’s right. So why did the porcupine cross the road?”

“I don’t know,” Jack yawns.

“To go to the spine doctor to fix his pointy spines.”

“That’s funny,” Jack says around another yawn, and Danny sits there and holds him until he’s asleep.

He’s leaving the room after tucking Jack in, when he steps on something and nearly goes flying. He catches himself, picks it up. It’s a crayon, and there’s a piece of paper. He picks that up, too.

It has one smiling stick figure and one frowning stick figure, and says, in lopsided, little kid writing: “ _Dada no b sad. Love Jacky_.”

He smiles, wipes away the dust in his eyes, puts the drawing on Jack’s dresser, and goes downstairs to wait for Linda.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Like a good Irish Catholic, Danny has a Confirmation name. I can see his mother pulling it out when he’s in trouble. I decided on “Michael”…patron saint of policemen.**

**I don’t like the conversation between the three siblings, but I’ll never post this chapter if I don’t post it tonight.**

* * *

He doesn’t make it over to see his mom until Saturday morning. Linda and the boys are at the zoo with Nikki and Erin, so he has the day to himself. His plans include visiting his mom, watching TV in his underwear, and going to the shooting range. He’s sorta maybe scheduled a visit with the shrink, but he might cancel that at the last minute.

He’s surprised to find his mom home alone. “Where’s Dad and Gramps?”

“Henry is at the store, and your dad got called in to work.”

He kisses her cheek. “Brought you an apple fritter from our favorite bakery. Not as good as the ones you used to make, but it’s still warm.”

She takes the bag and sets it on her bedside table. “Thanks, Danny boy.”

“Mom…it’s still warm. Best to eat it now.”

She shakes her head. “I…can’t eat anything right now.”

And then he gets it. “Damn. You had chemo this week, didn’t you? I’m sorry.”

She nods. “It’s okay, I’ll be better in time for Sunday dinner. Now, what is your father not telling me about last week? Don’t try to mollycoddle me, Daniel. I might be dying, but I’m not an imbecile.”

He sighs, feeling like he’s 12 again and in trouble for cutting Erin’s hat to shreds.

No way to sugar-coat it. “Mom, are you sure you want to know? Promise not to pass out on me or something?”

“Just tell me, Danny.”

“I’ve been having a hard time since I got home, and…I…if Linda hadn’t called me the day Sean spiked a 103˚ fever…I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”

She freezes, and for a minute he’s afraid he’s going to have to spell it out, stop using euphemisms, then she pales. “Why, Danny? Why would try to kill yourself? What happened over there that’s so bad you can’t talk to Linda or me or…?”

“I told you: I’m the only one who made it home. I wish I had died over there, rather than live with all these memories and nightmares,” he whispers.

“Daniel Fitzgerald Michael Reagan, don’t say that, don't ever say that!”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he whispers, and jumps when she hugs him with more strength than her frail body should possess.

He hugs her back, curses under his breath when her tears soak his shirt.

* * *

He ends up staying with his mom until his grandfather gets home from the store. He’s leaving when she whispers, conspiratorially, “If I had the strength, I’d pull a Sister Margaret Mary and make your father write 100 lines: ‘ _Reagans should talk about their feelings, Reagans should go to therapy if they need it, and Reagans should stop being ashamed of taking medication if they need it_.’ Wouldn’t do any good, but it might get him to think.”

He nods absent-mindedly, then looks at her. “You had Sister Margaret Mary in school, too? I didn’t…”

He stops before he says “ _I didn’t know she was that old_.”

She elbows him gently. “Danny-boy, every generation of Catholic schoolchildren had a Sister Margaret Mary, either as teacher or principal. You just spent more time in her office than any of your siblings.”

He nods—she has a point—kisses her cheek. “Yeah. You look tired, Mom, I’m gonna let you rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He locks the door behind him, and drives around aimlessly for an hour.

* * *

Erin isn’t actually at the zoo, unlike what Danny thinks. She’s headed there—she’d asked Linda to keep Nikki for an hour with the boys—but she’s sitting in a coffee shop across the street from the zoo talking with her brothers.

“You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, Joe!”

He smirks at her—that Reagan charm none of the girls can resist. “Danny’s been so…strange since he got home. I thought maybe we could find out what was wrong and help.”

She rolls her eyes. Her brothers are such _men_. All they wanna do is fix problems. “Danny doesn’t want help. Don’t you get it? He’s gotta tough it out. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“So what’s wrong with him, wise guy?” Jamie cracks.

Erin punches him. “If he wanted us to know, he would have told us. Leave Danny alone!”

“He tried to kill himself—I heard that much. Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?” Joe asks.

“I don’t know, but I do know he’ll kill us if he finds out we’re talking about him behind his back. I’m supposed to be at the zoo with Linda and the kids; you all coming?”

Jamie begs off, saying he has to go study for a huge test on Monday, but Joe goes with her to the zoo.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Buckle up! This is a long one, and it's bumpy, and...well, make sure you have some tissues nearby**.

* * *

Danny cancels his appointment with the head-shrinker and drives around for a couple hours.

He goes home, checks the lockbox out of habit—it’s empty, because he’s still on modified, so his off-duty weapon and his service weapon are both with Gormley—and pulls his dress blues uniform—his Marine dress blues, not his NYPD dress blues—out of the closet.

He wonders idly if burning the suit would incinerate the nightmares and flashbacks, and then wonders if he’d get in trouble for burning it. It’s not like anyone would know…

There’s a loose thread where he’d torn the Bronze Star off in a fit of anger, mere hours after they’d given it to him.

He goes and gets the damn f-g stupid medal out of the lockbox.

He pins it back on to his dress blues, and suddenly his heart’s pounding and he can’t breathe and…

_“Dan, just take the damn medal,” Padre had said, and Danny looks at him in surprise: he_ never _cursed. “You want your honorable discharge, don’t you? Refusing the medal, throwing a fit…won’t get you that honorable discharge. You wanna get home to Linda and the boys, right?”_

_He nods and accepts it from his C.O. later that day. He wants to yell at the man, throw the medal in his face, tell him he doesn’t deserve it, ask the Lieutenant to just shoot him and be done with it._

_Instead, he stuffs all those feelings down and acts like he’s totally f-g honored to get the damn medal._

* * *

Linda gets home from the zoo with two whiny, hungry boys. They’d wanted lunch at the zoo, but the lines were long, and she’d stayed firm in her “no.”

Danny’s car is in the driveway, and she relaxes. She’s unlocking the door, Sean pulling on her pants, when something tells her not to go inside yet—at least not with her sons. “Boys, do you want to go see Ms. Janie’s fish tank?”

Janie, their next-door neighbor, has a huge fish tank which is a source of endless delight for the two boys when she babysits them.

“Yeah!” Jack shouts, and Sean looks around, saying, “Fishy?”

She grabs some snacks out of the car and walks them next door. “Janie, I’m sorry, but could you keep the boys for an hour? I need to check on something…”

“Sure, Linda, what’s wrong?”

She drops her voice. “Danny’s been…having a hard time, and I just want to make sure he’s okay before I take the boys inside. You know when you get that feeling that...something isn't right?”

“Of course I'll keep them. How can I help? Do I need to call anyone?"

"Just...keep them for a couple hours, please?" Linda says.

Janie says, excitedly to the boys, "Well, it just so happens I bought some new fingerpaints that need two little boys to help me test them out, whaddaya say, boys? Should we paint Fishy and Goldie’s pictures?”

Boys taken care of, Linda hurries across the yard to her own house, lets herself in. “Danny?” she calls, but the house is silent.

She unlocks the lockbox in the closet—empty, which chills her until she remembers he’s still on modified. She checks the liquor cabinet—it’s still locked, and the key is still in its hiding place above the stove.

Heart in her mouth, she takes the stairs two at a time, pauses in the doorway of their room.

Danny’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. His dress blues are crumpled next to him, and her heart stops.

Then she sees his shoulders trembling, and she rushes to him, dropping to her knees and wiping his tears away. “Danny, babe, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t respond, and her fingers go to his wrist. His pulse is racing, and he’s breathing so fast his whole body is shaking.

* * *

Ten minutes later, he’s still hyperventilating and not responding to her, and she calls 911, then calls that Dawson guy, who says he’ll meet them at the ER.

* * *

Two hours and one ER visit later, Danny stirs. “L…Linda?”

“Right here, babe. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. What…why am I in the hospital?”

“What do you remember?”

“Got my dress blues…couldn’t breathe…”

“You had a panic attack. You were hyperventilating when I got home. You passed out ‘cause you weren’t getting enough oxygen. Hey, leave that alone,” she chides as he starts to take the cannula out of his nose.

“I passed out?” he groans. “Don’t tell me you called my dad?”

“No, I didn’t call your family.”

“The boys?”

“Finger painting—and hopefully napping—with Janie.”

“I’m sorry.”

She kisses him gently. “Hey, this isn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Why do you think that?”

* * *

Danny stares at the wall, still seeing his buddies’ faces flashing before him on that white wall. “Because I should be stronger than this. Normal guys don’t have a flashback and pass out just because they looked at a medal that they don’t deserve.”

“Veterans whose minds are so overwhelmed they shut down in an attempt to reset things, can and do faint during a flashback,” a strange voice says from the doorway, and he looks up to see that headshrinker.

“What the hell are you doing here, Doc?”

“I was hoping we could talk a little.” He holds his hands up in a defensive posture. “Not about what happened; we’ll get to that later, but about how you’re feeling now.”

“My head’s killing me, and I’m feeling…woozy.”

“Linda said you hit your head pretty when you fainted. The wooziness could be from the anti-anxiety med.”

“Anxiety? I don’t have f-g anxiety.”

“Detective Reagan, when Linda got you to the ER, your oxygen saturation was below 90, and you were taking almost 50 breaths per minute. That was caused by pure panic. You were having a helluva panic attack.”

“Well, what caused it since you know everything that happened, _Doc_?” he sneers.

“Whatever memories were triggered when you looked at your dress blues and the Bronze Star. I won’t know until we start to unpack what you were thinking when you got home this morning—which we are not going to do today.”

“Well, what are _we_ going to do today?”

“I’m going to go home and leave you in the capable hands of your wife.”

No sooner has he left than another f-g doctor walks in and gives Linda a prescription for him—an anti-anxiety med, to be taken “ _when he feels like he’s going to have a flashback, or when he starts thinking about his trauma_.”

He hates that this doctor is talking about him like he’s not in the room. And why are they treating him like he’s so damned weak, he can’t even think about Fallujah without needing to be drugged to the gills so he doesn’t freak out? That was a one-time thing.

* * *

It’s five p.m. when they get home. Janie has apparently brought the boys over, because they charge him the minute he walks in the door. “Dada, Dada, Dada!”

He stumbles, sinks onto the couch and picks them up. “Hey, guys.”

“I made lasagna; it’s in the oven, Linda. There’s also some i-c-e c-r-e-a-m in the freezer. Call me if you need me to keep them overnight,” Janie says, and leaves while Linda is still trying to press a couple twenties into her hand.

Danny holds the boys close, half-heartedly refusing their pleas to "wrestle." That might just push him over the edge again.

He manages half a piece of lasagna—it’s not as good as Linda’s, that’s why he isn’t hungry, he tells himself—and some of the packaged salad.

He tries to smile when the boys end up getting their ice cream all over their faces, but doesn’t eat any himself. “You okay, babe?” Linda asks, and he’s too damn exhausted to tell her that’s a stupid question, just shakes his head and puts his plate in the sink, then goes to the living room and turns the TV on to some mindless nature program.

“We drew this for you, Dada!” Jack says, and he takes the pictures.

He’s got like five pictures there, stick figures, fish, all smiling, and he picks his boys up. “Thanks, boys.”

“Wuv Dada!” Sean says, and he hugs the little boy tightly.

  
“I love you too, Sean-o.”

He puts a DVD in, and they’re asleep before Lion King is half-over.

He sits there while Linda puts them to bed, mentally scolding himself for not going upstairs to say good-night. He’s still sitting there when she comes back down. “Danny?” she says quietly, and he hears the fear in her voice.

“I…I’m here. Not gonna freak out on you again.”

“It’s okay. Hey, look at me.”

He shakes his head, startles when she sits down and pulls him close, kisses him. “I love you.”

“Love you more,” he says. “Why aren’t you…mad or something? I totally freaked out like an idiot. I’m supposed to be stronger than that. I…damnit, I have to be stronger than that,” he whisper-shouts, punching the couch cushion with his fist.

“Why, Danny? Why do you have to be stronger than that? What’s so horrible about admitting that you went through hell over there? What happened over there…isn’t something you just automatically know how to deal with, so it’s normal to be overwhelmed and having nightmares and panic attacks and flashbacks.”

He shakes his head, clenches his hands, tries to focus on the pain of his nails digging into his palms. He can feel the panic coming back and he can’t go through that again…

  
She rubs his back. "Breathe, Danny. Nice and slow. In through your nose...and out through your mouth."

She pulls him so his back is against her chest, and he feels her body move with her exaggerated breathing. He tries to copy her a few times, feeling ridiculously comforted when she says "Good job, that's it, babe. You're doing great."

He doesn’t resist when Linda pulls him to his feet, but he does dig in his heels—literally—when they get to the door of their bedroom. “I can’t…”

“Hey, it’s okay. I put everything away. I lit a candle, and I ran us a hot bath, and we’re just gonna relax. Happy thoughts only tonight, okay, babe?”

She closes and locks the door, and before he can panic, her shirt is on the floor and he’s only looking at her, and he willingly joins her in the tub.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I tried to write a scene with Danny and Linda relaxing in the tub Saturday night, and I couldn’t. It was too separate from the rest of the chapter. And this isn’t as relaxing a Sunday as I’d wanted for them, because my Muse is just mean**.

They decide Sunday will be a family day, just the 4 of them. They go to the early Mass at the local parish, because there are usually fewer people there than at a later Mass—and definitely fewer people than at the church where Danny’s family goes.

Danny catches himself looking at every purse and bag and wallet left in the pews when they file up for Communion—he doesn’t receive Communion, because he needs to get his sinful butt to confession, but that just sounds like another hurdle he’s not ready for yet—and suddenly he can’t breathe and he has to get out of there now.

He fakes a coughing fit, taps Linda on the shoulder and gestures for her to follow him, then picks up Jack and flees to the parking-lot.

He unlocks the door and lets Jack clamber in, leans on the hood of their van. _How stupid can you be, Reagan? This is the States, there’s no chance in hell there’d be a bomb in one of those purses or diaper bags, you gotta stop this or you’ll wind up in the loony bin_.

He about jumps out of his skin when Linda rubs his back. “Easy, you’re okay.”

He shakes his head. “I’ve been home with you and the boys for two months now. When is this gonna stop?”

“I don’t know, babe. I’m sorry. I think you should call Doc when we get home.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“And you told me that he said to call him anytime. Having a panic attack, or flashback, or whatever that was, in the middle of church…you need to talk about what triggered that.”

He nods, just as Sean tugs on his pants. “Dada?”

He picks him up. “Hey, Sean-o.”

“Dada,” Sean says, snuggling into him.

“Dada okay?” Jack asks.

“I…got overheated, bud. It’s okay.” Somewhere between the back door of the church and now, he’d lost his tie and a button from his collar.

He starts buckling Sean in his car seat, jumps when Jack pops up from the back seat and a siren starts going off. “I found my police car, Dada! Just like yours, but cooler! It has lights, and, and… that!” He pushes the button to make the siren go off again.

He rubs his tattoo, willing his heart to stop pounding. “Sirens. Those are called sirens.”

Sean starts crying, and Danny puts his shoe back on. “Shhh, Sean-o. it’s just a toy. You’re okay. Jacky, that toy is too loud for the car. Give it to Dada.”

Jack pouts, but hands him the toy. Danny quickly takes out the batteries, pocketing them. The sirens had sounded like air-raid sirens in Fallujah, and if Sean hadn’t started crying…he’d probably be on the ground having another f-g flashback.

He leaves Linda to buckle in Jack, and sinks into the driving seat, gripping the steering wheel. _Just keep breathing, Reagan_.

Linda hands him his tie. “Let’s switch.”

“I’m good.”

“You wanna take the chance of getting into an accident because a squirrel runs in front of you, or another plastic bag blows across the street…with our boys in the car? I’ll drive,” Linda whispers angrily.

She really thinks he’d put their boys’ lives at risk? He can’t look her in the eye, just hands the keys to her, gets out, and walks around to the passenger side. “Let’s go get some d-o-n-u-t-s and go home,” he half-begs Linda.

* * *

A few hours later, he slumps onto a park bench. “Remind me why we’re meeting here and not your office?” he asks the head-shrinker, eyes firmly fixed on Linda, who’s pushing the boys on the swings.

“Because it’s a beautiful spring day, because you said you’d had two panic attacks since yesterday and I thought being outside might help, and because if you need a break, all you have to do is walk twenty feet to the swings where your family is.”

He nods. “How many patients have you done this for?”

“Done what?”

“Met outside of your office. On a Sunday.”

“I really don’t keep track of those statistics, but I have met with patients outside of my office. Now stop deflecting, Detective Reagan. You’re the one who called me. What happened?”

“At Mass today, I started looking at all the bags and purses people leave in the pews when they go up for Communion. You know the unattended baggage warning at airports? Hits a lot closer to home after Fallujah. Any f-g unattended bag or package or freaking dead animal could be a bomb over there.”

“What did you do next?”

He stares at his feet. “I grabbed Jack, motioned to Linda that we needed to go, and bolted.”

“So you weren’t totally trapped in Fallujah, you knew you were with your family, and you made sure they were safe as well? That’s progress, Detective Reagan.”

“’Danny,’” he mumbles. “Call me ‘Danny.’ Keep feeling like I’m in trouble when you call me ‘Detective Reagan.’”

“Okay, Danny. But…again, having the presence of mind to take your family with you is a good sign.”

* * *

They talk for an hour, “Doc” promising to give him some worksheets for something called “CPT” to help him retrain his thinking so he can talk himself down from the ledge the next time he’s tempted to bolt out of the church.

It sounds like it’s gonna be hard work, “CPT” sounds too much like “CBD,” and he wishes he could just drug himself out of his misery. Though he doesn’t think he could be a cop if he were smoking weed. At the rate things are going, he might not be a cop much longer, unless he gets his head on straight really soon.

He goes to push Sean on the swing. “Dada hungry!”

He puts Sean in the stroller and they walk home.

He makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the boys, and gets them settled with their sandwiches, baby carrots, and milk.

He’s trying to talk himself into a sandwich…stupid anxiety med they’re giving him is making him nauseous…when Linda takes the knife out of his hand and kisses him. “I love you.”

“Love you more,” he whispers against her lips. “What’s this about?”

“I just love watching you be their dad. Most guys would get home and zone out to the TV. You’re making sandwiches and changing diapers.”

He shrugs. “Just doing my job. Also, I missed almost two years of Jack’s life, and a year of Sean’s. Trying to make up for it.”

“You don’t need to make up for anything, babe. You’re home, you’re with me and the boys. That’s all that matters.”

“You’re not…tired of me? Scared of me? Afraid I’m gonna snap and hurt you or the boys?”

She pulls him into the living room and sits on the couch next to him. “I’m not afraid of you hurting me or the boys—ever. I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself. What I am”—she kisses him hard—“is proud as hell of you for…”

He pulls away, confused. “You’re proud of me? Why?”

“Because you’re getting help. You’re not drinking yourself to death, or drowning yourself in work, or zoning out to the TV and avoiding me and the boys. You’re trying to get better, and I love you for it.”

He kisses her again, until a crash and tears sound from the kitchen.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Sorry for the (unintentional) cliffhanger on the last chapter. Sean knocked a vase off the table, trying to give Jack his carrot sticks because he (Sean) doesn’t like them**.

* * *

Dawson, damn him, schedules him for weekly sessions every Monday. This f-g therapy is going to take 12 weeks. He doesn’t think he can handle three months of modified duty. He didn’t become a cop to sit at a desk. And after Fallujah…it’s just better if he’s on the street, busy, facing danger.

After the first session with Dawson that Monday, he decides he’s not going back. Thinking about Fallujah… having to sit down and write a detailed re-telling of that hell-hole…is exactly what he’s been trying to avoid.

The anti-anxiety med had been prescribed “as needed.” He doesn’t need it, so he mixes it up with coffee grounds and throws it away.

He’s fine.

He calls the department shrink and tries to get her to clear him for full duty. Unfortunately, she’s a stickler for rules, and says she can’t, since she’s not the one who put him on modified.

He plods along doing his desk job, hoping maybe someone will have pity on him and decide to restore him to full duty.

Tuesday night, he starts sleeping on the couch so his nightmares don’t wake up Linda. He wishes he hadn’t thrown away the meds, because now anything he sees that’s out-of-place—even Jack’s LEGOS scattered across the living floor—makes him think _IED_.

They’re getting ready for dessert on Mother’s Day, and he’s just tucked the boys in on the couch after they fell asleep during dinner. They had had nightmares all night, and he’s wondering how much of that was caused by the tension they’re picking up on from him.

It’s been exactly one week since Linda told him she was proud of him.

“You look like you’re expecting the house to explode,” Joe snarks. “Why so jittery?”

“Because I don’t know that it isn’t going to,” he snaps. “Now will everyone stop looking at me like I’m going to fall apart?” he asks, and storms out.

He drives back to the squad and sleeps in the bunks that night.

In the morning, he has five missed calls from Linda, two from his father, and one from Gormley. He deletes the voicemails without listening to them.

He showers, changes into the spare clothes he keeps at the squad, and is at his desk by 5 a.m.

“You’re not working today,” a voice says from behind him, and he whirls to see his father.

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Your mother’s in the hospital. She collapsed after that little stunt you pulled yesterday.”

“Stunt? So you’re blaming me? Dammit, Dad! If Joe had just…”

“We’ll talk about it later. Right now, you need to go see your mother.”

“I thought you said she collapsed.”

“She collapsed; she didn’t faint. She’s asking for you. If you upset her again, you’re going to be banned from the hospital. Also, you’re on sick leave for the foreseeable future—until the department shrink clears you.”

“What? Modified isn’t enough punishment?”

“Go see your mother, Detective Reagan,” Frank says tersely, and leaves.

* * *

He stands in the doorway of his mother’s hospital room for about ten minutes.

“Come in, Danny.”

He walks in the room, surprised when his dad doesn’t come in to referee. “I’m sorry, Mom…”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, Ma. What is it?”

“You need to apologize to Linda and Erin…yesterday was their day, too…and you need to go back to therapy.”

“Mom, all due respect…”

“Daniel. I do not want to go to my grave worrying that you’re going to kill yourself, or hurt Linda or my grandsons during a flashback. And that is where you are headed. Promise me.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Mom, it’s not that eas…”

“It is that easy. I’m not saying therapy will be easy, but I know you won’t break a promise to me, Danny-boy. Promise me you’ll go back to therapy and you’ll stick with it, no matter how hard it gets.”

“Mom…”

“Danny. Please.”

He can’t say “no” to her…not when she’s dying, not when she calls him “Danny-boy,” not when he’d spent two hours last night wondering if he could break into the safe where they were keeping his weapons.

“I promise,” he whispers, kisses her warm forehead, and leaves.

* * *

Linda’s pacing in the waiting room when he gets there. He pulls her close. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I ruined your Mother’s Day.”

She pulls away from him. “You made your mother collapse, Danny. On Mother’s Day. I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to.”

“My mother thinks otherwise. I just saw her. I’m sorry, babe.”

Erin glares at him. “You need help, Danny. Storming out like that in front of Mom…I hope—”

“I’m sorry, Erin,” he interrupts.

His kid sister shakes her head. “I hope you come to your senses before she’s dead; you can’t keep stressing her out,” she says, and leaves.

He sinks into a chair, stares at his feet. “I’m sorry, Linda.”

“Apology accepted. What else did your mother say?”

He sighs. “She made me promise to apologize to you and Erin, and to go back to therapy and stick with it.”

“Are you going to?”

“Go back to therapy? I don’t have a choice. I promised Mom.”

“I will support you as best I can, Danny, but you have got to keep your temper in check around the boys. I’m glad they were asleep yesterday; they do not need to see you like that.”

He nods. “I know. Guess the punching-bag and I will have to get re-acquainted. O, by the way, Dad’s put me on sick leave. I’m not allowed to step foot in the precinct.”

“Good,” Linda says, as her phone rings. “It’s Janie; I need to take this. Don’t go anywhere,” she says, and he gets some coffee from the table in the corner of the waiting room, and sits down to wait.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Linda isn’t as angry as I hoped to write her; hope y’all like the argument. The Muse took over the conversation, and I just typed the words. Whoops** …

“Why have you been sleeping on the couch?” are the first words out of Linda’s mouth when she comes back to the waiting room.

He looks up from counting tiles on the floor. “Seriously, you’re asking me this here? In the hospital? In a public waiting room?”

“There’s no one here but you and me. and I’d like to know why you’ve slept on the couch for 5 nights, and then last night you never came home!”

He stands up. “We’re not discussing this here. I’ll meet you at home.”

* * *

He’s hardly inside the door when Linda is tugging on his belt buckle. “I…thought you were mad,” he stammers, even as his body reacts to what she so obviously wants.

“I’m pissed at you, Danny. You haven’t slept in our bed for six…”

“Where are the boys?” he interrupts.

“With your grandfather.”

* * *

  
They have the best angry-make-up-sex they’ve had since he got home from Fallujah. Actually, the best sex, period, since he got home from Fallujah.

He’s dozing when she says, “Why have you been sleeping on the couch?” and he sits up, because now she’s crying.

“I…I thought it would be better. You’d sleep better, my nightmares wouldn’t wake you up, and…”

“I don’t care about your nightmares!” she says, and punches him in the chest. “I mean, I do, but...twelve months, Danny. Twelve months in our bed without you, because you were off on some suicide mission in some Godforsaken country, waking up every morning wondering if today would be the day I’d open the door to two Marines…” She trails off, her shoulders shaking with her sobs.

He throws the sheet off, grabs his shirt off the floor. “Suicide mission? That’s not what me enlisting was! What the hell do you mean, Linda?”

She grabs his shirt from him, wipes her face with it. “I mean you haven’t been yourself since you came home. And after your first tour, I begged you—I begged you not to go back! I told you I wanted another baby—and you upped and left.”

“I was on leave, Linda. I still had two years left. My four years wasn’t up.”

“Still isn’t up. Explain to me why you’re here now when in January you said you wouldn’t be home ‘till November.”

“I told you why they sent me home, Linda!”

“Doesn’t make sense to me—they could have stuck you with another unit.”

“Because one night in the hospital, I tried to kill myself. Padre Donovan is the only one who knows. He did everything he could to get me out of there; he’d been in the Corps before he became a priest, and he knew the Captain, so he talked him into thinking that giving me a medal and sending me home was the best option—that I didn’t play well with others and that I wouldn’t mesh with another squad. I owe him big-time for that.”

He sinks down onto the bed, his hands shaking. Since getting home, he’d thought that maybe he’d just dreamed that incident, but the memory had come back in full force while he was sitting in the parking-lot in April with his weapon in his head.

He’s trying to put his shirt on so he can flee, but his hands are shaking too hard; and then Linda’s on top of him, pushing him onto the bed. “I’m sorry, Danny. I didn’t mean to yell. But twice in five months…you tried twice to kill yourself?”

“O, it wasn’t an attempt…the military shrinks call it a f-g ‘suicidal gesture’—like that makes it better somehow,” he scoffs, muttering a few other words under his breath.

She kisses him, and for a while he forgets all about Fallujah.

* * *

His scars are bleeding when she’s done making love to him.

He lets her bandage them, flinching despite her gentleness.

“I…I sleep better when you’re next to me, Danny. Even with your nightmares,” she says hesitantly. “I really need you to stop sleeping on the couch.”

“Okay,” he whispers, too tired to argue.

“What happened to your meds? Pill bottle isn’t in the bathroom.”

“I…left it at work,” he lies, twiddling with his ring.

“Danny, you play with your wedding ring when you’re lying. Now what did you do with them?”

“I threw them out,” he whispers, not looking at her. “They made me fuzzy, and I don’t have anxiety, dammit! I just…need something for nightmares, and I’ll be better.”

“I think there’s a lot more going on than just nightmares, Danny. I think you need to do the work you’re paying Dawson for.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw your notes on the table—you have to write about Fallujah. You’re supposed to see him tonight, aren’t you? It is Monday.”

He sighs. “Yeah. And there’s no getting out of it, now that I promised Mom.”

They shower, then he makes lunch while Linda washes the sheets.

They’re eating their sandwiches, Linda stealing his chips, when the doorbell rings. It’s Henry, with two wailing little boys. “We went for a walk, walked right past the pool. They didn’t like being told it doesn’t open for a few more weeks. It probably didn’t help that they wouldn't nap, either.”

Danny takes Sean and sits down in the rocking chair with him and rubs his back. In twenty minutes, the little boy has cried himself to sleep.

Jack argues with Linda for almost an hour before he, too, succumbs.

“I think I’d rather face an IED again than that level of wailing and snot,” Danny says as they walk out of the boys’ room.

He stops so suddenly Linda runs into his back. He stares at the wall for a long minute, then goes downstairs and sits down in front of the damned three-ring binder.


	21. Chapter 21

He’s broken three pencils and made a hole in the paper, trying to do his homework, when Linda slaps something down on the table.

He jumps. “What’s this?”

“The receipt for the damn pills you decided you didn’t need. We had to pay out of pocket—$250 for 30 pills. That’s $250 you decided to throw down the drain.”

He stands up. “I’m sorry. I’ll…I’ll pick up an extra tour to make up for it.”

She shakes her head, hands on her hips. “And how are you gonna do that, Detective? You’re on freaking desk duty because you freaking tried to kill yourself!”

His shoulders slump. “I…I’m sorry, okay? I’ll…”

“You’ll…what? You can’t do anything about it. You should have thought about that before you threw them away. You can talk yourself out of the next damn flashback, because I sure as hell won’t help.”

She storms out, and he can hear her taking the sheets out of the washing machine, then slamming the dryer closed.

He sighs, wonders how hard it would be to get some pills off of one of his C.I.’s.

No, the chances of those pills being mixed with something that would kill him… _but don’t you wanna die? Isn’t that what all this is about?_ the little voice in his head says.

“No, dammit!” he whisper-shouts to himself.

_Great, Reagan, now you’re talking to himself. You’re really losing it_.

He hears the boys waking up from their naps, Linda talking to them, and decides he can’t stay here any longer.

The thing he has feared most since Fallujah, has happened: she’s tired of him, tired of his problems; she doesn’t want him anymore.

He grabs the three-ring binder, scribbles a note for Linda, and gets in the car. At least no one’s taken his keys away…just his gun and his alcohol.

* * *

He drives to a quiet park, calls the doctor who’d prescribed the pills. After twenty minutes on hold, he gets through to him, tells him the pills got thrown away, and asks if there’s a generic or something. The doc says there is, but he can’t prescribe anymore without seeing Danny in person.

He cusses the doctor out and goes for a drive, ending up in the parking-lot of the abandoned ice-skating rink where he and Linda had had their second date.

Somehow, even when they’re fighting, he feels close to her here.

He catches a whiff of her perfume, and frowns, then realizes there’s a pile of laundry in the back seat that needs to go to the cleaner’s. He grabs one of her blouses, holds it like it’s some f-g security blanket and he’s f-g two years old. It still smells like her.

He’s really screwed up now.

Linda doesn’t want to help him. She’s tired of him.

He can’t do this…any of this…without her. She’s the only reason he came home alive.

He needs to call her and apologize.

His phone starts ringing, and he about hits the roof. He could have sworn he’d turned off the volume.

He grabs it from the passenger seat, answers on the fifth ring. “Reagan.”

“Danny, where are you? I’ve been calling you. You can’t just up and leave like that.”

“Why not? ‘Cause you’re afraid I’ll do something stupid? After you just told me you were tired of my screwed-up brain? Lucky for you I don’t have my weapon!”

“Danny, where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Linda!”

“Look, I…I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I said I was tired of dealing with you. I didn’t mean it, Danny. Please, please just tell me where you are.”

“Our…our ice-skating rink.”

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Don’t go anywhere, babe.”

* * *

He startles at a knock on the window, looks up to see her tear-stained face, and unlocks the door.

She opens the door and grabs him fiercely. “Don’t do that to me again ever, ever, Danny! When I saw your note…” she’s crying, and her next words are muffled when she kisses him.

“I didn’t say I was gonna do anything,” he mutters when they break for air.

“You said you were sorry, and you loved me ‘till death do us part.’ What the hell am I supposed to think? I almost came after you right then, but I was afraid if I chased you down, you’d get into a crash; and I had to get the boys taken care of.”

“Where are they?”

“With Jocelyn.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost 3 p.m.”

He nods. His appointment with Doc is at 7 p.m.

He groans when she moves his chair back and climbs over him into the passenger seat. “What was that for?”

“We need to talk, and I don’t want to let you out of my sight right now.”

“Because you think I’m weak and unstable,” he mutters, more to himself than to her.

“No!” she says, settling into the chair and looking at him. “Not because you’re weak. Because I love you, and because I am so, so sorry for what I said this morning. I didn’t mean it, Danny; I was frustrated that you’d thrown away that much money, and I didn’t think before I spoke. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” he mutters, not really believing her.

“Look at me, Danny, please, babe.”

He shakes his head.

“Please?”

He only looks at her when she puts her hands on his face and turns it toward her. “I am sorry that I keep sticking my foot in my mouth. I’m sorry I don’t know how to help or what to say…no one ever told me how to help your spouse when he comes back from war with PTSD. How can I fix this?”

He shrugs, pulls away.

“Do you want me to come to your appointment tonight?”

He bolts upright at that. “No!” She will leave him…she will take the kids and leave him…if she hears the thoughts in his head about why he survived the event that killed all of his buddies.

“Will you come home with me?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t want his boys to see him like this…

“I’m going to make a phone call, okay, babe?”

He stares out the window as she makes two calls, startles when she puts her hand on his knee. “Your doctor can see you in thirty minutes to get you another prescription. And Dawson can see us both at 6, before your session.”

He nods. She’s always been good at sweet-talking people into doing things.

* * *

He’s completely exhausted by the time they get home from Doc. He lies down on the couch, and Sean pops up from behind it. “Dada!”

He picks the toddler up, lies back down holding him. “Hey, buddy, why aren’t you in bed?”

“Scawwy.”

“He had a nightmare,” Jocelyn says, taking the check from Linda. “He only wanted you, and I couldn’t get him out from behind there.”

He nods, kisses Sean’s head. “Can you tell Dada about it?”

“Dada go byebye.”

“I’m here, buddy, I’m not going anywhere.”

That fails to console the little boy, who bursts into tears.

  
Danny moves to the rocking-chair, and rocks him to sleep.

When Sean is finally asleep, Danny takes a long, hot shower. He’s so exhausted he feels like he’s shaking all over.

He’s been in a fog since leaving the parking-lot, almost feeling like he was just watching things going on. There had been labels mentioned, words bandied about, people asking him ten million times if he could hear them.

He finishes his shower, spends ten minutes trying to look at the bandage on his back, then throws some pants on and goes to find Linda.

She’s sitting up in bed reading, and he sits down next to her. “Can you…walk me through what happened?”

“What do you mean, Danny?”

“After…we left the parking-lot…I just feel foggy. Like I was doing things but not really…I don’t remember what happened at the two appointments.”

“Well, your GP decided to swap the anti-anxiety med for an anti-depressant. It should help with the PTSD and the panic attacks. You’re supposed to take one before bed, along with an anti-emetic so it doesn’t make you nauseous. Dawson gave me some good advice on what not to say, so I don’t stick my foot in my mouth again. You were pretty rattled still, so he decided to push back your CBT session; said quiet time with me and the boys would be better for you than a session.”

He takes the pills she offers, swallows them. “I’m sorry. Am I…do I have work tomorrow?”

“No, your boss put you on sick leave for the rest of the week. If the boys sleep in by some miracle, we’ll have pancakes and a relaxing family day. Truly relaxing this time.”

He nods, and falls asleep listening to her heartbeat.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: I have _no clue_ where this chapter came from. At least the shower/bath part. It was just going to be Linda thinking about how to help Danny, and then...it turned into something else. Hope this is okay. I blame (not really) @visionsofdazzlingrooms's stories for the shower/bath idea, I'm sure I got it from one of her stories**.

* * *

Linda holds the tears back until his breathing tells her he’s asleep. She had never expected this—that Danny has been home less than three months and tried to kill himself and been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety. (And, she’s pretty sure, a hefty dose of depression in there, as well.)

She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but…throwing away $250 worth of pills? In terms of flashbacks, what was that worth to him? Four or five? Had he thought about that before he got rid of them?

A sob shakes her, and she quietly gets out of bed and pads to the bathroom.

How selfish can she be, trying to put a value on the pain he experiences in those panic attacks and flashbacks and nightmares? He is suffering—she knows it, he’s lost weight, he hasn’t slept through the night once since he got home, and his eyes…his eyes break her heart.

The light comes on suddenly, and she stifles a shriek.

Danny’s standing there in the doorway, his pants twisted around his waist like he’d been thrashing around in a nightmare, his shirt off.

“I didn’t know you were there; I’m sorry. Gonna puke,” he mumbles, and drops to his knees next to the toilet and does just that.

She rubs his back, biting her lip when she feels the bandage over the scars. The bandage that’s there because she scratched his scars while they were making love.

“Did you have a nightmare, or is this the new med?” she asks when he’s done.

“Dunno. Both maybe.”

She kisses his head. “Are you okay?”

He shrugs. “Think I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine, Danny. I just…needed to have a cry. You know, like sometimes I do. Now answer the damn question!”

He shakes his head, shrinking a little, and she silently calls herself every name in the book. She needs to stop getting angry with him, stop letting him see how frustrated she is that she can’t help him. “I’m sorry, Danny. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’ll be there whenever you need me; I just don’t know how to help you, and I’m afraid I’m losing you to your demons.”

He kisses her hair, and she tries to figure out what he’s mumbling. The words don’t make any sense, but they’re vaguely comforting.

She holds him gently. “You’re freezing.”

“Too hot. Think that’s sweat.”

“Will you take a shower with me?”

He tenses and pulls away.

“Danny, what is it?”

“I told you I saw my buddies tortured. Our whole unit was captured. That’s what the scars on my back are from. And they…water…water…” he coughs, spits in the toilet, “waterboarded us.”

“So that’s why you never wash your face when we shower together?”

“Yeah,” he says, not looking at her. "Stupid, f-g weak..." he mutters.

She reaches for him, turns his face to look at her. “I love you. That’s not weakness, Danny; that’s trauma.”

“How could you tell? I thought I hid it…”

“Because I know you, Danny.” She kisses him gently. “Why do you prefer to shower alone?”

“Because then you don’t see me freaking out.”

He sounds so ashamed, like freaking out makes him weak. She doesn’t know how to help him with that, and hopes Dawson is as good as he sounds.

“What helps you, besides showering alone?”

“You being there. Us…making love. Not getting water in my face.”

“Okay. Will you let me help you?”

He nods, and she turns on the shower.

They get in, and she’s surprised when he buries his face in her breast. “You’re safe now, Danny. I’ve got you,” she says, feeling his breathing speed up.

She removes his hand from her @$$ and checks his pulse. It’s racing. He’s trying to distract himself with desire, but this is sheer panic.

Slowly she lowers them both to sit on the floor of the shower, and holds him tightly. “I’m gonna fill the tub up, okay? We’ll take a bath instead of a shower.”

He shakes his head. “No…have to…toughen…be tough…”

She kisses his head and plugs the drain behind her. “No more tough guy act, Danny. It’s okay.”

He tries to reach around her and turn the shower back on, then lunges out of the tub—giving her a very nice view, though she mentally yells at herself for thinking that when he’s hurting so much—and throws up in the trashcan.

She very carefully gets out, stepping on the bathmat, and puts a towel on the floor so they don’t slip and injure…or kill…themselves.

She rubs his back until he’s done. “Tub’s nice and full, come soak with me.”

He turns to look at her, panic flashing in his eyes, then lets her help him in.

She holds him and rubs his shoulders and runs her fingers through his hair, until the water is cool.


End file.
